Sunday, March 14, 2010

Sephora-moric Ramblings

Diane and I made a couple trips to the Chicago area last month, and had to make a Sephora pitstop during one of them. Acres and acres of makeup, a girly-girl's dream!

While I browsed, she approached a gorgeous employee and asked her about her eye-shadow technique. (I've named said employee "Jasmine," because I think she could play her in Disney's Aladdin.) Jasmine began explaining the technique, and Diane finally decided she needed a demonstration to fully understand. She dragged me over and put me in the chair. Of course! If her own eyes were closed for the demonstration, how could she see how to do it?

For Diane, I let Jasmine have her way with my eyelids. Here's Jasmine, and the effect we were after:

And here are my eyes, all done up, just like hers:

Uncanny, huh? It's like we're twins.

Diane took her turn in the chair then, and I snuck off to find makeup remover; the near-black was a little too intense for a pasty-skinned midwestern girl like myself.

The eyeshadow was a bust, but she did help me pick out a good foundation. It's called Make Up Forever, and it's High Definition! Jasmine explained to me that this makeup would make my skin appear so flawless that any photos or videos that I should happen to appear inwould not have to be professionally touched up. As if that would be of major concern to me. My personal "touch-up" system, when faced with a lousy photo of myself or anyone else is to delete that sucker off of the camera and pretend it never happened. Duh. That's just good manners

While the sales pitch didn't do much for me, the makeup itself did, and I bought it for one-hundred-million dollars. I do love it. I also bought an expensive foundation brush just because Diane bought one, and I had to copy. This after I've lectured for years that most "makeup" brushes can be purchased for a fraction of the price at any art store. Sephora is the devil, and Sephora made me do it.

Also, Sephora is coming to Champaign! After years of hitting up Chicago or St. Louis or resorting to online shopping, we'll finally have a great skin-care/cosmetic place in this burg!

Lord, I'm going to end up in the poorhouse.

Upside: Any photos take of me while I'm in said poorhouse will not have to be touched up.

Mandy and I went into Ulta one day a few weeks ago and after 5 minutes left feeling totally shell-shocked. The makeup megastore is not for me. The employees AND the clients were totally daft and the techno rock made my head vibrate. We went to Aveda next, where the lovely consultant there made us some tea to soothe our nerves, then tested a few foundations on Mandy and found the perfect one. Much better experience there. Plus, their styling wax smells divine.

Not being the girlie type, I've never even heard of Sephora, but I discovered Ulta when I needed false eyelashes for Halloween. I finally found that stay-on lipstick that I had seen advertised and it really works. I also found a good comfy make-up. Something whipped. Maybe Maybelline. I'd have to go read the bottle. I always bought my make-up at the grocery store, but Ulta is my new fave. I guess I got lucky because the salesperson was very helpful. But this is Texas where (most) women take their make-up VERY seriously.